War in Pacific more than 65 years ago

by jmaloni

Sailors, solders, others remember Japanese surrender, last battles of WWII

Fri, Sep 10th 2010 05:40 pm

by Michael J. Owen

U.S. Navy Journalist (Ret.)

"General quarters, general
quarters! All hands man your battle stations. Go up and forward on your
starboard side, down and aft on your port side. General quarters, general
quarters," echoed across the decks of the amphibious personnel attack ship
U.S.S. Bingham, APA-225, as a Japanese suicide kamikaze plane neared the ship
in 1945. A loader on the 20mm antiaircraft gun, Peter Xanthos, a Grand Island
resident and Navy veteran, along with other sailors scrambled to their battle
stations to fend off the enemy air attack with antiaircraft fire and a
camouflage of thick gray smoke. Deployed in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater since
1944, his ship was also part of the invasion of Okinawa in spring 1945 and
other Pacific battles that lead up to the Japanese surrender and end of the
second World War, 65 years ago this month.

"The kamikazes came every
day, sometimes two to three times," said Xanthos. "We used to put up a cloud of
thick gray smoke that completely covered the ship. There were times at our gun
stations during GQ, that we couldn't see a damn thing. We constantly heard
‘Smoke boat, make smoke' and hoped another ship had a clear shot at the
kamikaze.

"The Battle of Okinawa was
one of the largest amphibious invasions of the Pacific campaign and last major
battle of the Pacific War," said Xanthos. "Like on many island invasions, the
Japanese would let us come in from the sea while hiding in the caves and then
hit us hard. Some of the troops we put on Okinawa were green as can be, just
kids right out of basic. I tried to calm one kid down, yet I was just as scared
having barely turned 19." The bloody battle claimed 34 allied ships and crafts,
sunk mostly by kamikazes, and almost 400 more were damaged. Casualties totaled
more than 12,000 Americans killed and 38,000 wounded. Additionally, 107,000
Japanese and Okinawan troops were killed along with possibly 100,000 civilians.
Yet, according to Xanthos, the numbers would have been worse with an invasion
of Japan.

"After repairs to our
ship, we were again sailing for Okinawa in August 1945 with a Navy Medical
Group and heard about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the
Japanese surrender," said Xanthos. The American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped
the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, and three days later a second
bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

"We were so relieved that
the war was over. After the surrender, our captain opened up sealed orders
revealing our involvement in the planned invasion of Japan scheduled to
begin in November," he said. "The invasion of Japan would have been a bloodbath
-- Armageddon."

The Japanese still had 3
million troops, plus every man, woman and child was ready to fight for their
homeland, even using wooden spears. Every beach was heavily fortified and
5,000 kamikaze planes were ready to attack the invasion force.

"Allied forces in the invasion
of Japan would have involved millions, dwarfing the Allies' invasion of Europe
in June 1944. Still, it was a sad end to a new peace," said Xanthos.

The sinking of the cruiser
U.S.S. Indianapolis, hidden from the public until after Japan's surrender, was
also a sad end, especially to Xanthos and other sailors.

"After delivering the
atomic bombs to the Marianas, she was torpedoed by a Japanese sub on July
30. The ship sank in 12 minutes before a radio message could be sent out,
leaving survivors adrift for two days. Many were eaten by sharks. Only 316 men
were rescued out of the crew of 1,200. It was the worst single disaster in time
of war in U.S. history," added Xanthos.

Last week marked VJ Day and
the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II when Japan formally surrendered
to the Allied forces on the morning of Sept. 2, 1945, on board the battleship
U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay. In the ceremony alongside her second 16-inch gun
turret, Gen. Douglas MacArthur said, "Today the guns are silent. A great
tragedy has ended. ... The holy mission has been completed." Other remaining
Japanese forces surrendered 65 year ago this week to Allied forces in the
Philippines, Wake Island, Singapore, Korea and finally Burma on Sept. 13, 1945.

Luke Owens thought the Army
had him during WWII, but he instead became one of the first U.S. Navy Seabees.
He was attached to a construction battalion in the South Pacific near New
Guinea.

"While we were lined up in
ranks, I heard someone say: ‘I'll take him' and boom I was a Navy Seabee," he
said, grinning. The official motto of the Seabees is "We Build, We Fight" or
simply "Can Do" that appears on the Navy veteran's hat he proudly wears at the
Grand Island Golden Age Center. Hearing the "Japanese surrender" news two years
later in New Caledonia off Australia, Owens was doing what a lot other sailors
do -- chipping paint. "I was chipping paint on an old water tank when everyone
starting yelling ‘hooray' while jumping up and down. We then proceeded to drink
lots of beer the rest of the day."

Fighting and building on
six continents, on more than 300 islands mostly in the Pacific, the start of
Seabee rating dates back to June 1942. They land soon after the Marines,
building airstrips, bridges, roads and Quonset huts for hospitals and housing.

Another Golden Age Center
member, John Kimmel, was a young Dutch man in West Java, Indonesian, during the
war and forced to work in a Japanese camp to survive. "We cut down rubber trees
by hand. We also took care of 2,000 pigs, apparently stolen from the Chinese to
feed Japanese troops during special events," he said. When the Japanese
official didn't show for work one morning in August 1945, word of mouth spread
that Japan had surrendered.

"We couldn't believe that
the Japanese had surrendered to the Americans. We thought they'd never give
up," said Kimmel. He then walked 6 miles through the jungle to catch a bus home
to Jakarta. "There my mother warned me that Indonesian terrorists were killing
the Dutch people, so I went to the 12th Battalion Dutch Army Base in Jakarta."
Later, Kimmel got a job on a tugboat, launching his lifelong Merchant Marine
career.

Former B-24 bombardier Lt.
Col. Torg Fadum was shot down over Europe during the war and put in a German
POW camp. Returning home after VE Day when Germany surrendered, he was now
being refitted for the possible invasion of Japan.

"When we heard the news of
Japan's surrender, we were in a military-run hotel in Atlantic City on 60 days
military leave," said the Grand Island resident. "As we were walking through
the lobby, a sort of chatter of sound spread across the hotel passing the word
that Japan had surrendered. This sent us straight to the bar to celebrate."

Bob Eldredge was another
soldier in the European Theater. He was sailing on an Army troop transport
heading for the states when the word was passed that Japan had surrendered.

"I was so happy. When we
pulled into New York City, seeing the Statue of Liberty made me cry. I had
finally made it home safe," said the Army veteran. He simply took the train to
Buffalo and just walked home. "I didn't need a parade. I just did my duty and
wanted to go home."

Grand Island resident, yet
then a German citizen in 1945, Konrad Mertz, was in Hungry and sentenced to 10
years in Dachau, a German concentration camp, after refusing the draft into
German SS in 1945. He represents the millions of citizens displaced by the war
who then tried to rebuild their lives along with the rest of Europe.
Fortunately the war ended in Europe a few months later and he traveled on foot,
by truck and then by horse and buggy to get home to war-torn Hungry and
eventually America.

Golden Age Club member
Betty Ann Wilkie represents the many women and men that supported the home
front while waiting for their loved ones to come home. She was waiting for her
Navy sailor to return from the sea. "When I heard the president on the radio
announce the Japanese surrender, I was so happy that he would soon becoming
coming home safely," she said. They were later married and lived a good life on
Grand Island, happily ever after.

Don Richard (pictured at
left) served on the light aircraft carrier U.S.S. Langley and fought against
many fierce Japanese kamikaze attacks in the Pacific. On Aug. 8, 1945, the ship
pulled in to Pearl Harbor to support a possible upcoming invasion of Japan.
Unknown to her crew, history was changing with the dropping of the two atomic
bombs that week.

"We were extremely happy
that the war was finally over. We heard about the 2,000 kamikaze planes waiting
for us if we had to invade Japan," said the Grand Island resident. After
Japan's surrender, the Langley joined other Allied ships in humanitarian
missions worldwide to bring the troops home and return Axis prisoners to their
homelands in Europe and the Pacific.

See more Navy Sea Stories,
WWII and post-war stories in future issues of the Island Dispatch. And don't
forget today and everyday to thank a vet for our freedom.